Patriots have busy offseason in front of them

The to-do list at One Patriot Place is a lengthy one, with a number of issues facing the team before it returns to the field in 2018.

Glen Farley The Enterprise @GFarley_ent

The to-do list is a lengthy one.

In the wake of Sunday night’s 41-33 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII, a busy offseason lies ahead – heck, it’s already begun (“no days off,” you know) – for the football team that resides at One Patriot Place.

While the reverse play Josh McDaniels executed on Tuesday, quitting as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts before he’d actually begun to return as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator-quarterbacks coach, removed one major item from the list, there is still the task of replacing defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, who was formally introduced as the head coach of the Detroit Lions on Wednesday afternoon.

Special-teamer Nate Ebner, who spent the latter part of the season on the injured reserve list, is also due to become an unrestricted free agent on March 14.

And those personnel issues aren’t even delving into the matter of Rob Gronkowski, the team’s 28-year-old, five-time Pro Bowl tight end, who, in the aftermath of Sunday night’s loss, told reporters: “I’m definitely going to look at my future, for sure.”

Is Gronkowski contemplating retirement or was he wrapped up in the emotions of the just-concluded Super Bowl loss or perhaps posturing to rework a deal that calls for him to earn a base salary of $8 million in 2018 as part of a contract that runs through 2019?

Then there’s the draft, one the team will enter with six picks – one each in the first, third, fourth, and sixth rounds, two in the second. The additional pick in the second round is the result of the puzzling trade that sent Jimmy Garoppolo to San Francisco, a deal that’s created one of the team’s more glaring needs in the April 26-28 draft – a 20-something to add to a position that currently consists of a 40-year-old franchise quarterback (Tom Brady) backed by a 32-year-old journeyman (Brian Hoyer). In other words, they need to find another Garoppolo to groom.

Regarding Patricia, the team’s defensive coordinator since 2012, linebackers coach Brian Flores has been viewed as the top in-house candidate to succeed him. Greg Schiano, the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach who had been rumored to be a candidate to join Bill Belichick’s staff in New England, announced on Wednesday that he will remain at Ohio State as Urban Meyer’s assistant head coach-defensive coordinator.

On the free agent front, it’s safe to assume that Butler will go – and if you didn’t believe that prior to Sunday night, you certainly do in the aftermath of his benching against the Eagles. On the flip side, it’s probably safe to assume that Slater, who has settled in here since he was drafted by the Patriots in 2008, will stay.

What of some of the other more prominent names on the free agents-in-waiting list?

Lewis has expressed how much he enjoys playing here, but we’ve heard that from players who ultimately headed out the door before and this is a player who will turn 28 in September, has an injury-plagued past and is coming off a season in which his value continued to rise. So there will be no time like the present for him to cash in at a position where the Patriots traditionally haven’t overpaid.

In Solder’s case, there really is no backup plan in place. Tony Garcia, whom the team selected in the third round of last year’s draft, might have been selected to succeed Solder as the team’s left tackle, but his was a lost rookie season spent on the non-football injury list.

And what of Amendola, as clutch a player as you’ll find and another who has expressed how much he enjoys playing here, but one who has already taken pay cuts in three straight offseasons to stay?